Its all Too Much ... / People We like: Dorothy Malone

1958's TOO MUCH TOO SOON is a delirious piece of trashy cinema, nice to relish now, purporting to tell the true story of Diana Barrymore - of the Barrymore dynasty, as played by Dorothy Malone. Its main interest of course is the casting of Erroll Flynn as Diana's father the great John Barrymore who dissipated his talent in drink and god knows what else - as Erroll was in fact doing at this stage of his life - he would of course die the following year 1959, ravaged by the excesses of his wayward life, looking a lot older than his 50 years - a long way from the glory years of the mid-30s when he was perfect for CAPTAIN BLOOD, ROBIN HOOD, ESSEX and all the rest.

Flynn is very touching here as the sozzled father trying to re-connect with his adoring daughter - but he exits the film half way through, leaving an hour more of Diana's descent to the gutter and her ultimate redemption (a year before her demise too, as the end credits tell us ...). The very under-rated Malone is marvellous here, ageing from a teenager to a mature woman - and the guys are ok too: Martin Milner as the reliable old beau, Efrem Zembalist Jr as the first husband and Ray Danton as the sleazy tennis pro who knows when he sees a dame to latch on to and exploit and abuse.

Booze, drugs and an endless string of bad lovers put her career on the rocks from which she never really recovered. Ms. Barrymore's story is sad and morose and this movie does its best to sensationalize it. Her fast rise is chronicled here as well as her even faster fall from grace. So its a downbeat movie really, not as trashy as those later Lana Turner epics, but theres a lot to interest here. Good to see it finally available. Directed by one Art Napoleon.

Now for Dorothy's WRITTEN ON THE WIND, a Sirk classic and her Oscar-winning best supporting actress role in 1956. Dot Malone is indeed one of those great gals we like (and she is still here too ...), review of her and Liberace in SINCERELY YOURS at Dorothy Malone label - a change for her from being out west a lot in all those oaters, she also pops in FATE IS THE HUNTER (1964) as another ritzy society dame, before she went into the tv series of PEYTON PLACE. I am catching her seduction of Tab Hunter in Warners' BATTLE CRY (1954) on again this weekend ... Dot too is terrific in all those westerns like WARLOCK ('59), THE LAST SUNSET ('61), FIVE GUNS WEST ('55), and in Sirk's TARNISHED ANGELS with Rock again in 1957 and back to Hawks' THE BIG SLEEP in '46 where she has that memorable scene in the bookshop with Bogie.

Scotty's services

Its certainly a fascinating read! - the book they are all up in arms about ... Scotty Bowers' story of the sexual services he provided for the in-crowd of Hollywood during the 1940s and later, from his gas station in downtown L.A. - the biggest stars turned up ...

I feel I am the only one in on the joke - this is surely Gore Vidal's last throw of the dice, a gigantic spoof, on the lines of his novels MYRA BRECKINRIDGE and MYRON - that pansexual world he advocates where everyone can have sex with everyone else regardless of gender or age, and may be his final revenge on people he doesn't like ...

I can well believe Scotty really exists (he is now 88) and was pimping out not only himself but also other guys and gals at the gas station in L.A. back in the '40s - Gore certainly knew him and has taken his story and added all the star stuff - "spilling the beans" on Hepburn, Tracy and the rest. Scotty seems to get his dates mixed up quite a bit - just after the war in about 1946 he describes a lunch meeting with Hepburn and Cukor and hair stylist Sydney Guilaroff (another happy client of Scottys of course) and they are arguing over Kate's hair style in ADAMS RIB, which is a 1949 film !

Also rich famous and goodlooking stars like Cary Grant and Randolph Scott would surely have to be very careful if they needed hunky marines to spice up their relationship between all those marriages of theirs. And then there is the peculiar story of Spencer Tracy and Scotty - and Walter Pidgeon (who knew? my mother's favorite actor!) outed as an early client of Scottys! Of course closeted stars back then couldn't be seen hanging out in bars, cruising the seafront or attending George Cukor's or Rock Hudson's exotic parties - not after Tab Hunter was caught at a "pyjama party". Also a lot of these actors had lines to learn for the next day, and could not be out late at night - so a discreet service set up by a hunky ex-marine who kept his mouth shut would have been ideal.

Despite my fascination with this tawdry side of hollywood it is not gossip as such I am after, but the truth of things - it is always the work that is important to me, and they certainly worked in those days, with 2 or 3 films a year !

I don't know how the lesbian scene works but would one of hollywood's top stars like Kate Hepburn want (or trust someone to get) young girls sent to her ? Supposing they talked afterwards ... why have none of them come forward, some must still be alive. And I think Vivien Leigh was quite adept at picking up truck drivers on her own, without Scotty's help ...

The book seems very disjointed - it begins with him being an innocent arriving in hollywood in 1946 after the war - Gore's golden age, as he often wrote about - and starting work at the gas station - as if he was an innocent and knew nothing about the goings on of the early 40s ... but as he tells his story in the following chapters he is the new kid in town in the early 40s on a weekend pass from the marines, and the first guy who picks him up turns out to be Orry-Kelly ! the famous dress designer (and a close pal of Cary's - who is not mentioned then). Then George Cukor turns up and invites him to his pool party the next sunday ! Then he is having threesomes with Cary and Randy - whom I thought lived together in the mid-30s - but this was the early 40s when they were at the height of their carrers and married to women, so they were hardly living together then, so maybe Scotty is getting his wires crossed - and he says he also bartended at a party/orgy of theirs in 1950!

Oh, and he meets Katharine Hepburn at the first Cukor pool party he attends, where she comes across as a very mannish lesbian ... so was Kate a regular at George's famous pool parties then? and it turns out George hates Garland ! It seems too that these guys like Cukor and Cole Porter are only interested in oral sex -maybe back then famous gays always paid for every sexual encounter and never wanted a relationship or to live with someone, but just to suck off an endless parade of johns - what a way to live!

And it seems every man Scotty ever met wanted to have sex with him, even when he was a kid, even all the married ones! Its a great read but one can hardly believe some of it! - plus no notes or index. Trash, then - utter trash, but try putting it down ... Scotty comes across as a saint, he never charged for his services, and didn't even want a cut on the sale of (then hard to get) pornographic pictures he posed for! Of course gay liberation and the gay lifestyle did not exist back in that post-war 1940s golden era, so young guys (and gals presumably) could sleep with or provide tricks for either sex without thinking about it too much or having to label themselves ... and there wasn't that 24 hour news media, mobile camera phones, or internet or inquisitive press to spoil things - as long as the fan magazines were kept happy!

Then of course in the '50s he helps out Roddy, Rock, Monty, Tony Perkins et al, but certainly didn't like Jimmy Dean! - his view on Rock's sham marriage is certainly interesting too - she, Phyllis, was of course a lesbian. How did they get away with it?, with all the PR people and fan magazines colluding in the fantasy; that couldn't still happen today could it? An interesting companion too to that William K Mann's tome on KATE a few years ago ... which also mentions Scotty. Plus if you read it you won't ever see Charles Laughton in the same light again!
(Coming soon: all those photos of Cary and Randolph ...)

Dory Previn, R.I.P.

What memories the very name Dory Previn brings back - those early '70s albums and songs like "Mythical Kings and Iguanas", "The Lady with the Braid", and the song about Mary C Brown the girl who jumped off the Hollywood sign, and Janis Joplin buying a headstone for Bessie Smith - but forgetting to pay for her own! In the era of Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, Carole King, James Taylor, Paul Simon et al Dory established herself as the singer/songwriter of gloom and depression, an acquired taste certainly but very effective. My late friend Stan liked her so much.

The breakup of that marriage with Andre Previn and the song about Mia Farrow were also fascinating ..... RIP indeed Dory, 86 is a very good age. Don't expect any Whitney-type coverage though.
She had met Previn on the set of the trashy MGM film THE SUBTERRANEANS (Trash label) in 1960, as he was one of the jazzmen included in the film, for which she had writte the theme lyric. ("Andre Previn and the Previnettes" as Morcambe & Wise once memorably introduced him in one of their tv sketches...)

Movie-wise her lyrics include Natalie Wood singing "Youre Gonna Hear From Me" in INSIDE DAISY CLOVER and Dionne Warwick's theme song and Susan Hayward/Helen Lawson's "I'll Plant My Own Tree" in VALLEY OF THE DOLLS !

Sanctuary, sanctuary ...

Fascinating to catch up now with THE STORY OF TEMPLE DRAKE, the first movie version of William Faulkner's novel SANCTUARY, it makes for a terrific 70 minute Pre-Code movie, directed by Stephen Roberts in 1933, with Miriam Hopkins in full throttle as that spoilt, selfish tease Temple, wno thinks she can flirt and control her men, until she is held captive by bootleggers and raped by Jack Le Rue, and Temple finds she likes it ... eventually back home she has to testify about what really happened and who killed Trigger (La Rue) which will show her up in her true light. Miriam of course went on to VANITY FAIR in 35, the first colour main movie, and appearing a few times with her rival Bette Davis and she was very effective in later roles, mainly for Wyler, in films like THE HEIRESS, CARRIE and THE CHILDREN'S HOUR. Many indeed are the stories of her feuds with Davis and others... I particularly relish 1943's OLD ACQUAINTANCE, a delirious treat anytime.

Fascinating too to compare with the 1960 version SANCTUARY, long unseen here, directed by Tony Richardson as his first venture in Hollywood, with Lee Remick perfect as Temple and Yves Montand doing an impersonation of La Rue. Here is what I said about it last year:


"Also long unseen here, is Tony Richardson’s 1961 film of SANCTUARY which I had wanted to catch up with for Lee Remick’s performance as Temple Drake. Bradford Dillman plays her husband and Yves Montand (fresh from Marilyn Monroe and LET’S MAKE LOVE) as the bootlegger Candyman who rapes her. Blues singer Odetta is also in the cast. Remick is as fascinating as ever as the tease who takes to sex and booze, and that remote to us now 20s era of flappers and the Charleston is well conveyed. The story is bizarre though with the death of the baby – again, perhaps a reading of the book would be useful. An odd choice though for director Tony Richardson. Montand has a great 'look' with the hat and the cigarette, but back then the English language continued to defeat him. Remick though is the reason to see this, with lots of lingering close-ups of her."

Soon: the real Jeanne Eagels in THE LETTER in 1929, also compared to Bette's in 1940 and Lee Remick's in 1982, and Kim Novak as Jeanne in the 1957 meller JEANNE EAGELS

1955 musicals: Tony & Janet, Ella, Peggy Lee, Jayne + Eileen and Lola Diamond !

Two rarities from 1955: IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER may be my favourite musical from that year (as per post on it recently), I had not seen PETE KELLY'S BLUES before but its a fascinating oddity now, not a musical as such as its a gangster drama about a jazz band with musical interludes, nice that it captures Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerland at their '50s peak - Peggy actually is very effective as the gangster's moll who sinks into alcohol and mental illness. Janet Leigh is somewhat wasted as the rich flapper who inexplicably falls for band leader Pete - Jack Webb at his most mono-syllabic. I never saw his DRAGNET series but he plays it so impassive and deadpan here, his directing is interesting too - dialogue scenes are long takes with no cutting or editing to closeups, so the actors have long scenes to get right.



The 20s atmosphere is nicely evoked and the drama is provided by racketeer Edmond O'Brien wanting a take of the band's money and imposing his singing girlfriend on them - but boy can she sing! Pete (Webb) has a nice insult to the gangster - that he had rubber pockets so he could steal soup! Lee Marvin is also in the band and plays a nice guy for once, one is glad when he returns and Martin Milner is the young hothead whom one knows will end up in a hail of bullets in the rain! There is a terrific shootout at the end in a deserted dance hall where the glitterball plays a major role!
Interestingly, the next year 1956 saw O'Brien sending up his gangster persona as another hood with a blonde girlfriend he wants to turn into a singer, she is Jeri Jordan (Jayne Mansfield) in Tashlin's riot THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT - Jayne also has a small part here as the (brunette) cigarette girl ... but hardly registers here. Great Warner Bros production values too.


SO THIS IS PARIS: Janet next went on to another favourite musical of that year: MY SISTER EILEEN (musicals label) so she and husband Tony Curtis were both singing and dancing that year! One hardly thinks of Curtis as a song and dance man but his brash enthusiasm is admirable in SO THIS IS PARIS - a studio bound musical from Universal and it comes across now as ON THE TOWN for simpletons as its a grotesquely simple-minded show about 3 sailors on the loose, also with touches of AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (cue cute kids...) Tony, in his bio, says it was made in 21 days!

Tony, Gene Nelson and Paul Gilbert (the Jules Munchin role here) are the three gobs who dock at Le Havre (a quaint little village here) and after wrecking a taxi end up in a studio Paris, where Tony falls for chanteuse Gloria De Haven and Gene for playgirl Corrine Calvet, while Mara Corday takes care of whatshisname. Nelson also choreographs and hoofs in the style of that other Gene ... its all simple-minded fun as Tony ascended the ladder to TRAPEZE, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS etc. Janet of course is totally enchanting in MY SISTER EILEEN where Bob Fosse and Tommy Rall fight over her - directed too by Richard Quine, also also directs this PARIS farrago before going on to the likes of BELL BOOK AND CANDLE with his muse Kim Novak.

A question: what do the 3 sailors dancing in their underwear/shorts by the pool wear underneath to hide any suggestion of genitalia - its like everything must have been strapped down (ditto Randolph Scott in MY FAVOURITE WIFE), as a jockstrap would suggest a bulge.... and of course there is no chest hair, just like Holden had to shave his for PICNIC! (and of course navels were not allowed either - all those gals like Joan Collins, Anita Ekberg etc had to have a jewel glued on down there. That's the '50s - a decade later it would all be hanging out!

and Lola:

thanks to my pal Jerry for reminding me that Paul Gilbert (the third sailor) re-appeared as that terrifying butch drag queen Lola Diamond in the 1965 opus SYLVIA - one of Joe Levine's trash classics ....(review at Carroll Baker/Trash labels).

The Crowded Sky

Back to 1960 when flying must have been more of a pleasure than it is now when we have to deal with crowded airports, tight security checks, airports which are really shopping malls, and all that is before one got on the plane where then there seemed to be more civility not to mention more legroom and bigger seats! This was a popular era for "doomed flight" scenarios as more people took to the skies, if they were crowded in 1960 imagine what they are like now (I live not far from Gatwick airport with its 800 flights a day - thankfully I don't hear them, but the plane lights look nice at night...).

So, we had '59's JET STORM with Stanley Baker as the pilot with a mad bomber (Richard Attenborough) on board, SOS PACIFIC where a rackety seaplane has to crash land near a nuclear test area, can they stop the test in time?, the ropey JET ACROSS THE ATLANTIC, and my favourite the 1956 BACK FROM ETERNITY where a jet (containing Robert Ryan, Anita Ekberg, Rod Steiger) crashes in the jungle near a tribe of head-hunters - again, can they get away before the natives attack? Topping all these was THE CROWDED SKY and of course 1954's THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY which was far too ponderous when I finally saw it a while back, and of course 1963's COME FLY WITH ME with its 3 hostesses looking for romance is also a nostalgic treat.

Like the others THE CROWDED SKY has if not quite an-star cast, a raft of B-players. Here we have Dana Andrews as pilot of the airliner flying west from Washington to LA, while Efrem Zembalist Jr is the navy pilot flying from San Diego to Washington, with young sailor Troy Donahue on board. Both planes are on a collision course as they should be flying at different altitudes as is normal with flights on these routes. The wooden performances and variable special effects simply add to its kitsch factor; some audiences can't help laughing at it, but nevertheless enjoying themselves at the same time. It would all be so much better done now, the actual collision is obviously done with models, but it set the template for those AIRPORT movies that followed in the 70s, AIRPORT 75 being particularly choice (and of course featuring Dana and Efrem again but this time as pilots in reverse, with Dana flying his small plane into Efrem's jet, leaving stewardess Karen Black to fly the plane until Charlton Heston drops in). Of course AIRPLANE in 1980 sent the whole genre sky high!

On THE CROWDED SKY we get little snippets of the passenger's stories: characters rarely develop in films like this, and most are little more than stereotyped sketches: glamour girl Jean Willes chasing old beau Keenan Wynn (who does not recognise her), the man with the dying wife, Patsy Kelly as a showbiz agent, the couple too shy to speak to each other etc. Stewardess Anne Francis is romancing co-pilot John Kerr (as dull and uninteresting as ever here) who is at loggerheads with pilot Dana. We get several flashbacks to Efrem's failed marriage to calculating Rhonda Fleming (top billed female but with only a couple of scenes).

Tension builds slowly as Jospeh Pevney directs and it all looks good in that Warner colour. A perfect time capsule of its time then, and amusing to see again now. What a wonderful experience flying used to be; beyond slick obvious entertainment, THE CROWDED SKY has the added dimension of evoking nostalgia for a vanished way of travel. Now for the PAN AM series!

1960 !

A thread on The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) on 1960 unleashed a torrent of memories:

1960 - what a year to have been 14 and "deeper into movies". Looking at it retrospectively now I am firmly in the PSYCHO and L'AVVENTURA camp (though I did not see the latter until years later) as the two most important films of the year, ushering in the new modern world (both of course feature a woman who goes missing and the people searching for her....)



So the major ones that year for me are: The 10 Big Ones:

PSYCHO
L'AVVENTURA
LA DOLCE VITA
ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS
PLEIN SOLEIL [I was entranced by that cool European style, and Delon and Laforet]
WILD RIVER [ditto Lee Remick]
THE APARTMENT
SPARTACUS
A BOUT DE SOUFFLE (BREATHLESS)
PEEPING TOM.

Lots of solid middlebrow entertainment:

SONS AND LOVERS
TWO WOMEN [Sophia at her peak]
NEVER ON SUNDAY
ELMER GANTRY
LETS MAKE LOVE
THE UNFORGIVEN
EXODUS
NORTH TO ALASKA [a favourite!]
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
WHERE THE BOYS ARE
THE CROWDED SKY
THE TIME MACHINE
SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON [great fun]
POLLYANNA [how we loved that in Ireland!]
BUTTERFIELD 8
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
BRIDES OF DRACULA
SINK THE BISMARCK
THE ENTERTAINER
SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING
TUNES OF GLORY
THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN
THE SUNDOWNERS [Mitch and Kerr were so ideally perfect here, again]
THE GRASS IS GREENER
CIMARRON
THE LOST WORLD.

I suppose THE ALAMO should be included too among the year's hits, and I also liked Blake Edwards' HIGH TIME where rich Bing Crosby goes back to college, and rooms with Fabian, Richard Beymer and Tuesday Weld!

It was certainly the year for call girls - apart from Elizabeth and Melina (NEVER ON SUNDAY) there were also

Gina Lollobrigida - GO NAKED IN THE WORLD (high class call girl falls for Tony Franciosa but his powerful father - Ernest Borgnine, an ex-client of hers, has other ideas...)

Nancy Kwan - THE WORLD OF SUZIE WONG

Anne Francis - GIRL OF THE NIGHT (downbeat indie film)

and award-winning Shirley Jones in ELMER GANTRY.

Adultery in suburbia was covered in Quine's STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET, with Kim Novak at her zenith.

It may have been Sophia Loren's best year: apart from the success of TWO WOMEN, she was also in Cukor's charming western HELLER IN PINK TIGHTS, plus THE MILLIONAIRESS with Peter Sellers' Indian doctor, with Gable in his second last film IT STARTED IN NAPLES which is still a charmer, and the under-rated A BREATH OF SCANDAL which I liked a lot.

Brigitte Bardot acted in LA VERITE, and Ingmar Bergman provided the austere THE VIRGIN SPRING, while Stanley Kramer inflicted the ponderous INHERIT THE WIND on us, and John Ford provided a good late western SERGEANT RUTLEDGE.

Donen's ONCE MORE WITH FEELING showcased Kay Kendall in her last role, she had died in 1959.

There were 2 Minnelli's: another hothouse melodrama HOME FROM THE HILL, and the under-rated musical BELLS ARE RINGING, Judy Holliday's last appearance.

Elvis was back from the army in GI BLUES and FLAMING STAR.

For those who like that kind of thing: Jerry Lewis as THE BELLBOY.

Some ghastly musicals were Fox's CAN-CAN and Columbia's all-star PEPE, and the Rat Pack played around in OCEAN'S 11.

One that did not work at all was Lumet's too highbrow THE FUGITIVE KIND, though Brando, Magnani and Woodward should have generated some box office .... despite playing what seemed like caricatures of themselves.

and for Trash you can't beat MGM and Arthur Freed for THE SUBTERRANEANS, their sanitised version of Jack Kerouac and the beat generation as depicted by Leslie Caron, George Peppard and Roddy McDowell - followed by the star quartet of Natalie, RJ Wagner, Susan Kohner and George Hamilton tearing each other apart in ALL THE FINE YOUNG CANNIBALS, plus the afore-mentioned GO NAKED IN THE WORLD. Lurid melodrama doesn't get much better... though there were also two Burton starrers: THE BRAMBLE BUSH and ICE PALACE; while THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS and FROM THE TERRACE were also contenders.

Some other delirious treats - not Trash, but Guilty Pleasures - were two Ross Hunter extravaganzas: Lana, Sandra and Quinn in PORTRAIT IN BLACK and Doris and Rex in MIDNIGHT LACE, and Dirk Bogarde as Lizst in SONG WITHOUT END, plus Fox's biblical: THE STORY OF RUTH, while Gordon Scott was Tarzan and Belinda Lee and Steve Reeves headed the Italian sword-and-sandal movies.

Lots of these are covered at the Trash label.

4 girls in town

FOUR GIRLS IN TOWN. I had totally forgotten this 1957 Universal-International item though I know I saw it at the time, it is perhaps, like AWAY ALL BOATS, the quintessential U-I flick. We have 4 girls arriving in Hollywood, all up for an important part in a new biblical epic.

They are: Julie Adams [with her fearsome mother Mabel Albertson], Italian go-getter Elsa Martinelli, from France Gia Scala [who has a secret husband and child] and from Austria Marianne Cook (or Koch – she was the mentally ill wife in Sirk’s INTERLUDE) who is recovering from losing her beloved in a car accident]. There is also one Rita Holloway, the studio's main star who is only ever seen from the rear and looks uncannily like Jayne Mansfield in THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT as she sways around the studio lot.



The girls are nicely depicted and the guys they meet include director George Nader, actor John Gavin, playboy Grant Williams [that INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN] and composer Sydney Chaplin. Gia (who got the GUNS OF NAVARONE gig but later commited suicide) has the least role here. Julie is as attractive as ever and Elsa (right) is the most eye-catching, she really is the most under-rated of the Italian sirens.

It plays out nicely with a surprise ending and is SO ‘50s! The girls are not complete of course until they each have a new man, and the scene where they gleefully catch fish coming ashore to lay their eggs would horrify today's sensibilities. Written and directed by one Jack Sher.

White Witch Doctor - pure hokum!

WHITE WITCH DOCTOR, 1953. Back to pure hokum with this 20th Century Fox actioner set in the Belgian Congo – but unlike THE AFRICAN QUEEN, MOGAMBO or THE NUN’S STORY we are firmly on the backlot here. I suppose one has to admire the ingenuity with which location footage is incorporated with the stars on sound stages, but it seems none of those Fox Hayward movies were filmed abroad (UNTAMED also in Africa with Ty Power, SOLDIER OF FORTUNE supposedly in Hong Kong with Gable, etc) This is one of Susan’s I had missed but both she and Robert Mitchum are on autopilot here, as the spunky widowed nurse arriving to help the natives, and he as the adventurer looking for gold who agrees to help her as cover to get to the tribe with the goldmine. Walter Slezak provides another deliciously sleazy villain and the local colour is piled on. With Hathaway directing, music by Herrmann and photography by Shamroy the experts make it look better than it is. A routine timewaster then for admirers of the leads who were better together in Ray’s THE LUSTY MEN. One good moment has a tarantula crawling on Susan in bed, more realistically done a decade before James Bond's tarantula in DR NO - the escaped gorilla is a man in a gorilla suit though!

R.I.P: Cliff Robertson

Cliff Robertson (1923-2011). Another leading man from my youth departs, but at the good age of 88. I highly rate his Michael Courtland in De Palma's OBSESSION - a movie I loved in 1976 [and a "Movie I Love" on here, see label]. Robertson has been around since I more or less began going to the movies - those early roles in PICNIC, AUTUMN LEAVES with Joan Crawford, GIDGET with Sandra Dee - the height of teendom in 1959 when I was 13 - and his stint as JFK in PT109.

For a while there he seemed interchangeable with James Garner or Rod Taylor (all "amiable 60s leading men" as the reference books would say). Somehow I never wanted to see his Oscar-winning turn in CHARLEY but he was terrific in THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR, and of course he stars opposite Lana in one of the great guilty pleasures: LOVE HAS MANY FACES! I saw one of his lesser 70s movies last week: OUT OF SEASON made in England where he is the guy between Vanessa Redgrave and Susan George! Looking at his credits it is a long career to which most of today's young actors can only aspire.



William Holden is generally considered too old for his role of the drifter in PICNIC but the pal he visits, Robertson, was also in his 30s then - also playing a character meant to be at least 10 years younger than he was. He was married to the lovely Dina Merrill.

Oh, those prudish '50s!

R.I.P: Jimmy Sangster

Jimmy Sangster [1927-2011] was a scriptwriter who helped put Hammer Films firmly on the '50s movie map. He became one of the driving, creative forces behind the legendary Hammer Studios, scripting many of their successes. In 1957 he wrote the sceenplay for THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN their first horror film shot in colour, followed by DRACULA and in 1959 THE MUMMY all starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, with good production values. My particular favourite was THE BRIDES OF DRACULA in 1960 - as per my previous post here, see Horror label.

Sangster said in an interview that he was given a free hand with the scripts - the only restriction was, regarding the FRANKENSTEIN movies, they could not use the bolts in the head, as those were copyrighted. Of course the films got worse as the series went on. He had a break from the Gothic with thrillers like A TASTE OF FEAR and THE NANNY for which they imported Bette Davis and some good English players: Jill Bennett, Wendy Craig, James Villiers. Sangster also produced and scripted the madly camp over the top film of a hit play THE ANNIVERSARY again teaming Davis with most of the cast of the play, including Sheila Hancock. I saw the original production of the play which had Mona Washbourne as the tyrant mother, Bette certainly made it her own, with that eyepatch!

He directed later Hammers like LUST FOR A VAMPIRE and THE HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN. But by then audiences had tired of their cheap and cheerful production values. Terence Fisher usually directed those early popular Hammer titles. Sangster also wrote novels, and was married to that very lovely individual actress Mary Peach. His many years in the business are indicative of the talent of a prolific and much-respected screenwriter whose films continue to be enjoyed to this day.